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Multicellular systems generate active forces through processes such as contractility, adhesion, cell rearrangement, and growth, but how these mechanical activities are coordinated with biological state to produce tissue-level function remains poorly understood. In this talk, I will discuss active multicellular deformation as a coarse-grained physical readout to study this problem. First, I will introduce our work on Hydra regeneration, where time-resolved deformation analysis reveals a biomechanical transition associated with body-axis formation and its coordination with Wnt/Hippo-Yap signalling. I will then extend this concept to patient-derived colorectal cancer organoids, in which early deformation dynamics and shape recovery after cell division reveal mutation-associated viscoelastic properties linked to cell-cell adhesion. Together, these studies suggest that active deformation dynamics provide a useful physical perspective for connecting biological state, mechanics, and multicellular function across different biological contexts.